Don Draper’s Guide to Fantastic Writing

There’s no doubt about it. Mad Men is a must-watch TV show if you are a creative individual.

Don Draper is the most creative alpha male on TV. Well, some might say Harvey Specter is pretty ingenious too, but… Don is something else. Dark and moody and mysterious, but also a genius when it comes to sipping whisky and crafting the perfect slogan.

He makes it all look freaking cool…

All of them do. Peggy, Don, even Roger, who does nothing these days but loaf around and spit out hilarious one-liners.

It’s not just them. It’s their work.

They sit around thinking up the perfect ad.

Then they convince their clients to spend a ton of bucks on it. Millions of people fall all over themselves to buy the product, shifting consumer culture, spawning billion-dollar industries, becoming household names.

And they do it all with nothing but words. How cool is that? Don’t tell me you never fantasized about your words changing the world?

I know, I know. It’s just a TV show. It’s not real life. But, contrary to what you might think, there are some great principles being presented in this show, principles that apply to great writing and great blogging too.

The big idea

“A slogan’s nothing when you have a good idea.” – Peggy Olsen

There are two kinds of writers in this world:

There are writers who enjoy procrastination more than anything else. They are also avid collectors of excuses. They can complain about their lack of inspiration, lack of time, lack of energy better than just about anyone else.

And then there are those writers who consume so much of the world around them, that connecting the dots is easy. They practically hoard ideas. They are always reading, listening, and watching for the next big idea. They are well aware that once they find it, packaging it is easy. They can wrap it up in a slogan, headline, or a domain name in a matter of minutes.

The first category of writers go about things in the opposite way. They worry so much about their domain names and headlines and slogans that they never get around to come up with great ideas.

The truth is, all of those things are just wrapping paper. It’s the gift inside that counts.

Focus on finding the big idea, and the rest will take care of itself.

Rummaging for inspiration

“A new idea is something they don’t know yet, so of course it’s not going to show up as an option.” – Don Draper

They publish posts intentionally designed to annoy them. They ignore their emails. They respond harshly to their comments.

To some extent, it’s about focusing your attention on the people you can help. But it’s also about shaping your tribe. No one wants to be a part of a group anyone can join.

By excluding the wrong people, you make the experience more precious for the right people. No, it’s not always pretty, but that’s the way we humans work.

The product people can’t stop buying

“People were buying cigarettes before Freud was born.” – Don Draper

Pop quiz. Which is better:

A) Starting a blog about a topic you are interested in, and then convincing the world to listen to you?

B) Starting a blog about a topic the world is interested in, and then convincing yourself to write about it?

If you chose B, congratulations. You chose correctly.

Without even realizing it though, most people choose A. They start a blog about a subject they want to write about, and then they use every psychological trick in the book to get people to read it.

And sometimes, it works. If you’re a good enough marketer, that is.

But why go through the trouble?

People don’t buy cigarettes because of the marketing. They buy them because they’re addicted. Cigarette companies are obliged to finance millions of dollars on marketing campaigns to convince people to stop smoking, and yet they continue to make billions of dollars anyway.

Yes, it’s terrible, but it’s also smart business. The best type of product is the one people can’t stop buying.

Can you say the same of your blog? Is your content so important they can’t stop reading?

Relationships

“You’re not good at relationships because you don’t value them.” – Roger Sterling

But it’s easy to lose sight of it. You can get lost in sharing your expertise, tinkering with the technology, or writing something you enjoy.

All of that’s important, sure, but none of it’s going to turn people into raving fans, faithfully reading and talking about your blog for the rest of their life. To get that kind of reaction, you need to write posts that touch people.

Give them a reason to laugh. Give them a reason to cheer. Give them a reason to keep fighting, even when they feel like all hope is lost.

Do that, and you won’t have to search for readers. They’ll search for you. You’ll boot up your computer one morning to find thousands upon thousands of them waiting for you, ready to listen, ready to learn, ready to launch into action.

And that’s when you’ll realize: you’re not just a writer anymore. Word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, you’re changing the world.

Maybe you’re like Don, lying on a couch, sipping a glass of bourbon, or maybe you’re not. Either way, you gotta admit…

This is the best blog post that I’ve read all day. I agree with you on all of your points. I am glad to see that I am not the only person who avoids Facebook and the news. I agree that inspiration is everywhere, including in random TV shows. I also walk around my house just thinking and talking to myself about my writing. My children are now used to it, and don’t look at me like I’m crazy anymore.

MAD MEN is and will always be my favourite show and I think it’s a home run to tie its creative bona fides with the thing it stood out for : writing and diversifying it as a form of judicious expression on the part of all writers.